The voice of Sara Bareilles could fill, and has filled, venues larger than the Humphrey Scottish Rite Masonic Center Auditorium, which sold out its 435-seat capacity when she stopped there Friday night.

Bareilles was in the midst of her first-ever solo tour and evidently wanted the intimacy of a smaller venue - combined, perhaps, with the assurance that if she failed, she would do so in front of a smaller crowd.

She did not fail. She moved confidently across a set that, through its minimal instrumentation, revealed even more of a pop-magpie sensibility than her albums and full-band shows have.

The opener, "Love on the Rocks" (not Neil Diamond's chestnut), established that sensibility. Her melodically spry piano-playing had elements of Carole King circa 1971, while her playful vocal phrasing was not unlike that of Norah Jones when Jones is a jazzy, instead of a jazz, singer.

She immediately proceeded to her biggest hit, "Love Song," which in this format suggested Ben Folds (producer of her 2012 EP "Once Upon Another Time") without the reflexive cleverness and, admittedly, also without the keyboard pyrotechnics.

Bareilles was clearly more expert on piano than guitar, but the switching of instruments increased the musical variety and permitted her to display a more straightforward side.

Playing acoustic guitar with simple chords, she gave "Basket Case" some of the naked heartache that Mark Eitzel has made his calling card. Playing electric with basic muscularity, she took "Come Round Soon" slightly closer to the dark places PJ Harvey often inhabits.

Bareilles wasn't as dark as all that, though. Between every song, she was sharp and funny, albeit in a "you had to be there" manner, and she was intent on making the connection to her fans that a larger room might have discouraged.

She got that, all right. Nobody required prompting to fill in the handclaps that she couldn't otherwise supply for "Let the Rain," and nobody chatted during a hushed rendition - a mix of a cappella and the haunted-wheeze accompaniment of what appeared to be an accordion - of "Once Upon Another Time."

People were so enthusiastic, in fact, that they cheered "Manhattan" - a song from her forthcoming album, "The Blessed Unrest" - before she started playing it.

The chances Bareilles took and the changes she made didn't always work. Her version of Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay" felt a little staid, and sometimes her impressive vocal range seemed to cry out for a bigger space.

Yet as she eased into her final song, a plaintive take on Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," she must have known that solo and small had been good choices.